A Trapeze of Memories
by snowbengal
Summary: Dick Grayson is alone in the Wayne mansion and deals with the anniversary of his parents' death by going for a swing on the trapeze to cheer himself up. This story takes place before he becomes everyone's favorite sidekick, Robin, and sheds some light on his past life as a Flying Grayson. Stick around for some fluffiness at the end.


_Hey everyone! This is my first Batman fanfic so I hope I haven't gotten some facts horribly wrong. I can't pinpoint exactly why but I really like Dick Grayson/Nightwing. His story and character are so tragic and they resonate deeply with me (I really just want to give him a hug!). I wanted to honor one of my favorite fictional characters with this fanfic that explores more of who he was before Robin. This story takes place a year after Bruce has taken him in (but before becoming Robin) and he's still dealing with the loss of his parents, especially on the anniversary of their death. I'll stop talking but please enjoy the story! If you have any comments/constructive criticisms, I would love to read them!_

Dry autumn leaves swirled in a chilly wind and scraped down the driveway outside the Wayne manor. Dick Grayson stared out at the dying trees from behind a large bay window, his face pressed against the cool panes. It was night but the moon was out, shining like a troubled, watery smear from behind thick clouds. The fitful light streamed in through the window, drawing stark shadows across Dick's face and sparkling on the unshed tears in his blue eyes.

The nine-year-old boy turned around and looked at the vast, echoing expanse of the living room. It was beautiful, furnished with leather sofas and mahogany coffee tables, and far more sophisticated than anything he had seen in his circus life. But there was something empty and cold about the massive room that made it feel too much like an abandoned crypt. The moonlight painted the room a ghostly shade of silver and Dick's eyes were drawn to a marble fireplace that glowed under the unearthly light. The sight of the finely carved stone made him catch his breath in pain as he remembered two white marble tombs running with streams of rain under a weeping sky. It was exactly a year since their death, exactly 365 days since he had seen his parents falling from the trapezes and saw their bodies splayed on the ground like broken flowers.

Dick couldn't take the tomb-like silence any longer and he got up and ran from the room, his soft footfalls swallowed up by the hollow immensity of the manor. He ran through shadowy hallway after shadowy hallway until he reached his room. Bruce had spared no expense in furnishing the luxurious room but even so, Dick missed his old room on the circus train. It had been big enough only for his rickety bed and battered dresser but he had decorated the walls with circus posters heavy with colorful paint and whimsical fonts and fantastical faces. What he missed about the old circus train was the sense of belonging and predictable chaos the hectic but comforting rhythm the troupe had given him.

Fighting a severe pang of homesickness, Dick reached for a worn picture of his family that he had propped up against a mug. It was the last picture taken of him and his parents and the three Graysons wore matching black and blue leotards. Bruce had repeatedly offered him finely wrought silver frames for the photograph but Dick had refused every time. He didn't want to imprison his parents behind cold metal and glass, no, that would be like trying to shut them away from his heart and that would be unforgiveable. He wanted to hold the fraying picture in his hands and smell the fading, flowery scent of his mother's perfume that still clung to the paper. After standing there for a few heartbeats, Dick left the lonely bedroom with the picture clutched tightly to his chest while drowning in memories and voices from the past.

 _"Dick? Dick, come on! Time to get up, my little robin." His mother's curly blond hair brushed his face as she jumped onto the bed and then rolled her sleepy son into a blanket burrito._

 _"Mommmm! I'm not a little robin, I'm a big robin!" Dick complained sleepily. Mary Grayson chuckled affectionately and stuck her hands through the blanket to tickle him._

 _"Get up get up, little big robin!" She said._

 _Dick giggled and rolled away from her tickling fingers._

 _John Grayson walked into the cramped bedroom and bodily picked Dick up, throwing him, blanket and all, into the air. Dick screamed in pretend terror as he was launched in the air._

 _"Come on Dick, we're going to be late for practice at this rate." He caught his son in his arms, his stern words eclipsed by the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth._

 _"Ouch!" Dick curled into himself, his face a mask of pain._

 _"Dick? Did I hurt you?" His dad exclaimed in horror._

 _"Just kidding, you fell for it, hahahaha!" He unwound himself, unable to stop the triumphant smirk on his face._

 _"You son of a gun!"_

 _Dick laughed infectiously as his dad threw him into the air again before the two of them fell backwards onto the bed where Dick's mother lay, watching them with a tender smile._

Dick squeezed his eyes shut against the sharp pain that shot through his body and took a deep breath. He could see them in the distance end of the dark hallway he was in. There they stood, Dick's quiet and serious father with his compassionate eyes and gentle hands and his light-hearted mother with the crooked smile and blue eyes her son had inherited. His parents had been completely opposite in nature but they had somehow fitted together in a clumsy yet tender way, united by their love of the unpredictable circus and their unruly son. Thousands of other memories rushed through the young boy's head, forming a shattered, fragmented reflection of his old life. He could remember countless midnight pancake feasts, walks along lamp-lit rivers and colorful figures catapulting through a circus tent. Dick shook his head and blinked and then his parents and were gone like will 'o' wisps stolen away by the night.

His shoulders shook with suppressed grief but he bit his lip, hoping the pain would drive away the impending tears. To distract himself, Dick aimlessly walked through the mansion, his feet taking him on a path to Bruce's study before he remembered that the billionaire had been unexpectedly called away to an emergency meeting he couldn't cancel. Alfred was on a weeklong vacation in Florence no doubt enjoying gelato and a warm sun that never shone on the brooding Gotham.

He directed his thoughts towards Bruce Wayne, a welcome diversion from the mother and father who would never come back to him. In truth Dick didn't what how to think about his constantly unavailable guardian. Although Bruce tried to be kind, he didn't really interact with Dick much and left it to Alfred to take care of his young ward. Once every two weeks, Bruce would summon Dick to his vault-like study and ask him how he was doing and whether he needed anything. Sincere as Bruce seemed about his well-being, these visits seemed more clinical than paternal and Dick would give polite, but distant answers.

Dick had also lived long enough with adults in the circus world to sense that the billionaire playboy was hiding a secret. Dick could see it, when Bruce hosted his lavish parties, that behind his guardian's superficial facade of arrogance and loud laughter, a cold and ruthless presence was on constant vigilance.

Lost in his thoughts of Bruce, Dick walked in the direction of the gymnasium, one of his favorite places in the mansion. The faint smell of chalk and the steel-brushed equipment reminded him of all the times he had spent training with his parents. The young acrobat walked into the darkened gym, turned on the lights and carefully placed his photograph on an inclined gym bench. He wanted his parents to see how much he had improved on the trapeze and how he had never forgotten to practice every morning, just like they had always wanted him to.

"Here I go, Mom, Dad. Let's give 'em a show they'll never forget." His voice was small and tremulous.

Dick walked past lines of punching bags, racks of dumbbells and medicine balls, and various machines to the ladder leading to a set of trapezes with a net hanging under it. It had been installed there for his ninth birthday and it was the happiest he had been since coming to the Wayne manor.

 _"Do you like it, Dick?" Bruce had asked, a hesitant look on his face._

 _"Yes, I do, I do! Thank you!"_

 _Bruce had smiled at his young ward's joy, a real smile that had sat strangely on his normally somber face._

Dick reached the top of the ladder, stood on the trapeze platform and looked down at the net. The holes in it seemed to mock him, yawning wide like vicious mouths to whisper, _"Coward, coward, you're not a Flying Grayson, you're a fake, a loony little pretender! You're just a scared little boy who can't even do one little trick without a net."_ Wasn't that true? He felt ashamed and dirty, like he was tarnishing the vaunted name of the Flying Graysons. His parents had never used a net, even in their practice sessions but had soared through the air with reckless abandon. _But look what happened to your parents. They fell all the way down and splat!_ The net seemed to tremble with laughter and Dick felt a sick fear rising in his chest as he saw the dizzying distance between himself and the ground. He shook his head violently to clear his thoughts and forced down his fears. With a huge effort, he stepped to the edge, placed his hands on the trapeze and felt a familiar excitement rising through his feet, tingling in the crown of his head and chasing away the last of his doubt.

 _"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Haly's Circus where you'll get the experience of a lifetime! Put your hands together for the Flying Graysoonnnnsss!"_

The deep voice boomed through the gym as Dick took a step forward and flew through the air on the trapeze. The cold air rushed past his face and lifted the heaviness out of his body as he performed the first maneuver around the trapeze bar. He pushed the bar forward with his weight and the trapeze began to swing through the air like a clock pendulum winding the years backwards. He dexterously performed a few more tricks, hanging from the trapeze with one arm and climbing up the ropes with an unconscious grace. Dick launched himself through the air and hooked his legs around the bar of the other trapeze so that he hung upside down. It was the routine the Grayson family had never completed that fateful night. As Dick swung through the air, he extended his arms and he could almost feel his mother's strong hands catching him and pulling him off into the open air like the robin she had called him. The memories of his time at the circus came flying back and as he skillfully wove his body around the trapeze and he was transported to a time of colorful costumes, plumed headdresses and flashing sequins.

 _The empty gym morphed into a tent's billowing, red and white-striped walls. Scents of hot, buttery popcorn, taffy and sweet cotton candy wafted through the circus space and the excitement was almost tangible. Dick nervously waited on a platform high up in the dark eaves behind the velvet curtains. He looked up at his father in fear as he heard the audience roar in amazement._

 _John Grayson knelt down and cupped his son's face and readjusted the black eye mask that framed his big, blue eyes._

 _"Don't be so scared, Dick. This is no different from the practices we do everyday and you haven't made a single mistake for a week now. Give it everything you've got and the audience will love you. Come on, let's give 'em a performance they'll never forget!" He ruffled Dick's hair proudly._

 _"But what if I fall, Dad?"_

 _"I'll catch you, I'll never let you fall, I promise." He hugged his son close._

 _Distantly, Dick heard Mr. Haly shout," Please welcome the Flyyinnnggg Grayssoonnns!"_

 _His mother smiled encouragingly, kissed him on the cheek and then whispered in his ear," It's time to fly, my little robin."_

 _Dick Grayson squared his small shoulders and then ran out from behind the heavy curtains and into the dazzlingly white spotlights. The audience screamed with excitement, waving colored glow sticks and other circus paraphernalia as their eyes lit up at the appearance of the famous acrobat family._

 _His father started the act by swinging across the vast space and flipping onto the next trapeze with breathless daring. As he swung back, Dick's mother pushed herself from the platform and executed a truly stunning quadruple somersault before her husband skillfully caught her ankles. The crowd was going wild with excitement and all eyes were on the small figure still on the platform as they waited for the youngest Grayson to complete the act._

 _As his mother swung back, Dick jumped onto the trapeze and swung towards his mother and stretched out his hands-_

And his hands slipped off the trapeze bar and he was falling, falling through the air with his arms helplessly flapping like a baby bird fallen from the nest.

"Dad!" He shouted out in fear. "DAD!" _You promised you'd catch me!_

 _"Dick!" His mother shouted and Dick realized that he wasn't the one falling. Time seemed to freeze, every tiny detail outlined by the harsh white lights burning into his eyes. Fear and shock was bright in his mother's blue eyes as with two sickening snaps, the trapeze popped free of its fastenings. John and Mary Grayson seemed to float for a moment, their bodies curved and graceful, before oh-so-slowly plummeting through the air. He heard his mother screaming, a high-pitched sound of animal fear that dried his mouth to ashes. Dick cried out and uncomprehendingly reached towards his falling parents, sure that he could still save them_

as he landed on the safety net with a bone-jarring thud, his mother's scream still ringing in his ears. He felt a stinging pain on the back of his neck and when his fingers touched the area he felt a sticky wetness. Dick looked at his fingers and saw blood covering them and it was a shockingly scarlet color. He began to hyperventilate

 _while staring at the growing pool of red that spilled almost carelessly from the bodies of his parents. Dick waited for them to get up, to brush the red from their clothes and to look up at him with teasing smiles. His mother liked to play jokes on him, to put downy feathers in his blankets or leave a little bits of hot pepper in his spaghetti and of course she was joking now. But the audience's shouts and groans of horror told him otherwise and then reality hit him and he cried_

out for his parents as the safety net slowly stopped wobbling. He didn't know how long he lay curled up in the net, tears pouring down his face and sobbing so hard he could hardly breathe. Pain and guilt ripped away at the hollowness in his heart that had never gone away since that day.

A pair of strong, muscular arms gently encircled him and lifted him from the net. He was cradled against a broad chest and being taken away from the gym. His father had caught him after all.

"Dad?" He whispered.

"I'm sorry Dick, I should have never left you alone. I forget how big and lonely this house can be, especially without Alfred." It was Bruce, with a cowl of shadows over his face but speaking in a remorseful voice.

The billionaire carried his young ward into the kitchen and set him down carefully on the kitchen counter. He took off his elegant suit jacket and draped it around the frail figure of the boy, swallowing him up in the sleek fabric.

"Here, you better hold onto this." Bruce pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Dick. "I'll make you some hot chocolate." He busied himself with the stove. Dick looked at what Bruce had given him and saw that it was the picture of his parents. He hugged it close, feeling fresh tears seep from the edges of his eyelashes. Dick jumped when Bruce stopped his preparations and poked the cut on his neck with a light finger and frowned.

"You're bleeding, hold still and let me treat it." He disappeared for a few seconds before reappearing with a first-aid kit. Bruce deftly cleaned up the cut with an alcohol wipe, Dick hissing in pain, and smeared some antiseptic on it before wrapping the cut up with a clean bandage.

Dick's eyes followed Bruce's efficient and controlled movements as the tall man washed his hands and poured the hot chocolate he had just prepared into a mug. He set the steaming cup besides Dick and then leaned down a little so he was closer to the boy's tear-stained face.

"Do you want to tell me what happened, Dick?" His voice and eyes were unusually gentle.

When Dick didn't say anything, Bruce sighed, took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears away from his ward's face. "I know I haven't watched you as closely as I should have but I thought you knew that you could always talk to me, Dick."

"You weren't here earlier." Dick tried not to sound too accusatory, but his voice still sounded rather petulant.

"I am not your babysitter, I can't always be here to hold your hand!" Dick flinched away from his guardian's harsh tone. Bruce kneaded his forehead with his fingers and sighed again

"I'm sorry Dick, I didn't mean to yell, I'm just angry at myself for not being here earlier. It's hard for me to show sometimes, but I really do care about you." The last few words sounded awkward coming from the stoic Bruce but they brimmed with sincerity. It was that genuine sincerity that finally allowed Dick to give voice to the thoughts that had been haunting him.

"I miss them." Dick's voice was shaky and barely audible.

"What?"

"I miss…I miss my parents." He started crying again, silent tears that were somehow far more draining than his noisy sobs earlier and buried his face in his knees.

Dick heard a rustle of clothing and felt Bruce's arms around him, his hands soothingly rubbing his back. "I know. Trust me, I know." Bruce said quietly, the two words loaded with an old, never-healed anguish.

"I could have saved them. If I had reached out a little further, I could've pulled my mother up." The words spilled out of Dick's mouth, underscored by a torrent of guilt. "I wish I could've gone with them. I just…don't want to be alone anymore." He wanted to see them again, to feel his father throw him into the air and hear his mother laughing as she spun him around and around in circles.

Bruce tilted Dick's chin upwards so that boy was staring directly into his steely blue eyes.

"Dick, I want you to listen to me very carefully right now. Don't ever think that way every again. Whether you could or could not have saved your parents doesn't matter and it was never your fault that they died. They're gone now but they loved you and wanted you to grow up strong and healthy. Become a man they can be proud of and live a happy life. That's the best way to honor their memory, not by trapping yourself in guilt and sadness, understand?"

Dick held Bruce's gaze, a spark of anger heating up his face before grief swept over him, trapping him under its terrible weight yet again.

"It's not fair." He choked out.

"I know it's not fair, but that's how life is." Though the words were callous, Dick could feel the depth of Bruce's sympathy and it comforted him immensely.

"Does it ever go away?" Dick asked in a small voice. The older man knew what he was talking about and his face grew troubled.

"No, but you grow stronger and learn to control and confront it." Bruce's gaze was distant.

"Do you still miss them?"

"Yes, all the time." The quiet admission transformed the indomitable, pain-hardened man back into a grief-stricken child clutching a broken string of pearls. The two orphans were quiet, the muted air filled with the memories of parents who would never be able to see their children grow up.

Bruce stirred and broke the silence first. "Drink your hot chocolate and go to sleep. You're going to be up early and I'd rather not have you slowing me down with your sleepiness."

"Where are we going?" Dick sipped the sweet beverage and it seemed to warm some of the cold emptiness in him.

"We're going to see the Yankees baseball game tomorrow. I booked us a flight to Chicago where they're going to be playing the White Sox."

"We're going to see a real live baseball game? Like an actual, real live baseball game!?" Dick was suddenly afire with boyish enthusiasm, his earlier sadness shelved away for the moment.

"Front seats." Bruce gave one of his rare smiles.

"How did you get tickets that good so late? And why did you get them?"

"Because I'm Bruce." The billionaire said with a straight face. Dick looked at his guardian with a skeptical eye as there seemed to be a joke he didn't understand.

"As for why, let's just say that I like to keep up with the American pastime for appearances."

"Huh. I hope that means you didn't steal anything…I would hate to have to report you to the police and not get to see the Yankees." Dick said tragically.

"Keep talking like that and I'll leave you behind. Come on, let's get you to bed, you must be exhausted."

"More like 'hausted.'" Dick quipped. Bruce looked at him quizzically but didn't comment.

Dick handed the suit jacket back to Bruce and somersaulted off the counter before grabbing the photograph of his parents. As the two walked back to Dick's room, he remembered something.

"Didn't you have an "emergency" meeting today?" He asked, elongating the syllables in "emergency".

"I realized "emergency" meeting or not, it wasn't a good idea to leave you in the house alone." Bruce said gruffly.

"Won't they be mad?" Dick was touched by his guardian's concern.

"Probably, but what can they do about it?"

"Fire you? Take away all your money? I know how devastating that would be."

"I'd like to see them try." The large man said darkly.

They had reached Dick's room and Bruce was about to leave when the young boy caught at his arm.

"Can you stay with me, Bruce? Until I fall asleep?" He begged. The dark emptiness of the room was bringing back the crushing sadness he had felt earlier and if Bruce left, he knew it would overwhelm him. Even now, echoes of familiar pain pulsed through his aching heart.

"Of course." The man sat down on the edge of the bed as Dick placed his picture on the nightstand and climbed under the sheets. The sound of Bruce's slow breathing calmed him and he was drifting off before he remembered there was something he wanted to ask.

"Hey, Bruce? Can you take the safety net away from the trapeze?"

There was a quick pause before Bruce answered. "Are you sure?"

"I think I can handle it." Dick said cockily. "Please?" He added in a more serious tone. Bruce was nothing but a shadow in the room but after a while, Dick saw him nod.

"Of course, I'll have it removed tomorrow."

Smiling, the last Flying Grayson was almost completely asleep in minutes. In his dozing state, he felt rather than heard, Bruce get up, touch his forehead and leave as silently as a wraith.

As he drifted towards the last boundaries of consciousness, he could hear his mother singing sweetly as if from a faraway room. It was a soft and sad Romani lullaby she had sang to him every night when he was a toddler. He could almost feel a ghostly hand stroking the place on his forehead Bruce had rested his hand.

 _Good night son, sweet dreams._

 _Dick Grayson was back on the circus train and he could hear the rhythmic chugging of train wheels against the track. He couldn't see his parents but he knew they were there, their love as warm and tangible as a soft blanket. He smiled and curled up like a small kitten._

 _Good night Mom, good night Dad._


End file.
